China’s deep-sea sub explores Indian Ocean seabed

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday of January 2 exchanged congratulatory messages with his Ecuadorian counterpart, Rafael Correa, on the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between their two countries.

In his message, Xi said China-Ecuador relations have witnessed smooth development over the past 35 years, and that after Correa took office, bilateral ties embarked on an accelerated pace thanks to concerted efforts by both sides.

Contacts at various levels have become closer between the two countries, with their pragmatic cooperation continuously deepening and people-to-people exchanges constantly expanding, he said.

Xi recalled his meeting with Correa last July in Brasilia, Brazil, where they exchanged views and reached important consensus on deepening China-Ecuador cooperation in various fields, as well as promoting bilateral ties, whose development he said is in the fundamental interest of the two countries and the two peoples.

“I attach great importance to the development of China-Ecuador relations,” said the Chinese president.

“Taking the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties as an opportunity, I am willing to make concerted efforts with you to continually promote our two countries’ relations to a new stage,” he added.

Correa said in his message that the decision on the establishment of diplomatic ties, made by Ecuadorian and Chinese leaders in the early 1980s, fully embodied the two countries’ fundamental interests.

Over the past three decades and a half, especially in recent years, Ecuador and China have kept deepening political relations and broadening trade and economic exchanges, and held similar positions on important international issues, he said.

He expressed his belief that the two countries, from a strategic height, will jointly lift bilateral relations to a new level.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Ecuadorian counterpart, Ricardo Patino, also exchanged congratulatory messages on the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Costa Rica’ counterpart Manuel Gonzalez Sanz will co-chair the first ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC forum, the Foreign Ministry announced on its website on Friday of January 2.

The meeting, slated for Jan 8-9 in Beijing, will see representatives from China and CELAC, meeting together with heads of some Latin American regional organizations.

A coordinators’ meeting will be held on Jan. 7 to prepare for the meeting.

Costa Rica currently holds the CELAC rotating chairmanship, while Ecuador is next. The two countries, together with Cuba and Bahamas, make up the CELAC Quartet.

Established in December 2011 in Caracas, Venezuela, CELAC includes all North and South American countries but the United States and Canada.

SINGAPORE

>>China takes new path in its peaceful rise: scholars

By Chen Jipeng

It is possible for China, in its rise, to tread a path different from those taken in the past by Britain or the United States, because the idea of peaceful, open and inclusive development it advocates does make sense in our current world, scholars said.

Each of the rising powers in the past had advocated different concepts and ideas that answered the need of their respective times, Zheng Yongnian, a renowned scholar on China studies, said in recent published comments on Lianhe Zaobao.

But he said that China “will not, and cannot take the paths that had been taken by Britain and the United States in the past.”

“It has to take a new path to rise,” he wrote. “Britain, in its rise, advocated free trade. The United States advocated freedom and democracy. China is now advocating peaceful, open and inclusive development.”

While the media and some of the scholars in the West have viewed China’s rise with suspicion, Chinese leaders have said that it is not in China’s genes to seek hegemony — not even after its peaceful rise.

Zheng highlighted that China has made it clear that it welcomes neighboring countries to “ride on the rise of China,” which can be seen from the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiatives and the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as well as the Silk Road Fund aimed at boosting regional connectivity and cooperation.

It is expected that China will be providing the capital and technology know-how to help its neighbors and quite a number of other countries build much-needed roads and port facilities — largely with no strings attached.

“These initiatives taken by China can be tools to boost regional and international economic development. And they are open. It is important in the current world for development to be open,” Zheng said.

China has capital, capacity and technology in infrastructural projects. It also has over capacity in some of the sectors, and these are what many other countries, especially the developing ones, need to speed up their growth.

China, faced with suspicion and trade protectionism from the West, will need its neighbors to grow their economies, too, said Zheng, adding that the infrastructural projects are expected to help boost trade between China and the neighboring countries.

“The approach is to help the developing countries grow their economy so that China’s own development can be sustainable,” Zheng said.

China has proposed the idea of a new paradigm for major power relations between it and the United States. It has also put forward proposals that will help other countries, especially the developing neighbors, to grow, too.

“China will be able to avoid the old paths taken in Western colonialism — exploiting the developing countries by getting the raw materials from these markets and dumping their products here,” he said.

China, the world’s largest trader, is now one of the world’s most open countries. It is expected to turn even more open. Some of the Western countries, however, have come from openness in the past to trade protectionism at present, even though it is a world of global and regional integration.

Zheng said that the competitiveness of a country in our current globalized world will depend on how open it can be.

Doborah Elms, executive director of Singapore-based think tank Asian Trade Center, has similar views. She said that the regional integration is also a process of economies integrating into a world of supply chains.

Supply chains are bigger and deeper than what most people think they are. The services and investment flows attached are significant, she said.

“In a world of supply chains, countries that are successful in eliminating barriers to trade for supply chain purposes will do much better than countries that don’t,” she said.

China has launched reforms to push forward its economic development with initiatives like the experimental free trade zones in several major cities.

More than 20 countries, including all the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have signed up to be founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Scholars said this is a testament to the idea striking a chord with countries in the region.

Oh Ei Sun, senior fellow at Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, said that he saw the need for infrastructural projects on trips across the region and dismissed the suspicion harbored by some on whether China could use the railway for other purposes.

“It is not difficult to block a railway any time,” he said. ” China can show the benefit by launching such projects where they are welcome.”

BEIJING

>>New Asian bank to go into operation by year end

By Zhu Shaobin

The Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) is expected to go into operation before the end of 2015, according to China’s Ministry of Finance (MOF).

MOF said that the founding nations of the bank are expected to complete negotiations over and subscription of the bank’s charter and regulations before June this year.

A MOF statement also said that the Maldives has become the latest prospective founding member of the bank after a consensus was reached among the 22 existing members on December 31, 2014.

So far, the number of Prospective Founding Members of the AIIB has increased to 23, including Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and the Maldives.

The MOF said any country interested in the AIIB is welcomed to join the bank.

The AIIB, an inter-governmental regional development institution in Asia, has an authorized capital of 100 billion U.S. dollars and the initial subscribed capital is expected to be around 50 billion dollars.

According to a memorandum of understanding signed in October 2014, Beijing will be the host city for the AIIB’s headquarters.

LUSAKA

>>Chinese mining firms will not halt operations in Zambia: ambassador

By Peng Lijun

Chinese Ambassador to Zambia Yang Youming said on Friday of January 2 that Chinese firms operating in Zambia will not halt their operations following the change of the country’s mining tax regime.

The Zambian parliament recently approved the 2015 national budget, which among other things has introduced a new mining tax regime. The new tax law has since been assented to by the acting Zambian president.

The new tax regime has seen the increase in mineral royalty taxes from six to eight percent for underground mines and to 20 percent for open pit mines, with some mining firms threatening to halt operations.

But Yang said in an interview broadcast on state radio, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation, that halting operations was not the best solution to tackle the problem but dialogue.

The Chinese envoy said Chinese firms have started consulting the government over the new tax regime and hoped that an amicable solution will be found after the talks.

He further reaffirmed Chinese companies’ commitment to work closely with Zambian communities and to contribute to the country’ s development due to long-lasting relations.

Zambia’s acting President Guy Scott said last week that the government has begun talks with the mining firms following the change of the mining tax regime.

He further said the government will not be intimidated by some mining companies that were threatening to close their operations following the introduction of the new mine tax regime.

Last year, Canadian-based mining giant, Barrick Gold Corporation, announced plans to initiate a process of suspending operations at its unit in Zambia following the government’s decision to approve the budget which contains the controversial new tax regime.

The Toronto-headquartered mining giant, which runs Lumwana Copper Mine in northwestern Zambia, said the introduction of the new mineral royalty has left it with no option but to initiate the process of suspending operations to reduce costs.

The new Mines and Minerals Act of 2014 replaces the 2008 Mines and Minerals Act and has stirred a debate in Africa’s second largest copper producer, with mining firms threatening to cut down on operations while the government has insisted that it will not bow down to the pressure from mining firms, saying the new law is a win-win situation for both parties.

The Zambia Chambers of Mines, an umbrella body representing major foreign mining firms, said the imminent implementation of the 2015 budget measures will make a number of other operations economically unviable, potentially leading to further mine closures.

The industry body said the southern African nation will lose in excess of 158,000 tons in copper production next year while over 12,000 workers will lose jobs in the sector due to the implementation of new mining tax regime.

CHANGCHUN

>>Over 5,000 take part in Changchun Worldloppet Skiing Festival

By Chen Chen and Wang Haofei

The 13th Worldloppet/Vasaloppet China 2015 Skiing Festival kicked off here on Friday of January 2, with over 5,000 fans from around the world taking part .

Angelo Corradini, President of the Worldloppet Ski Federation (WSF), said during the opening ceremony that this year’s event is more international and professional.

“It’s my second time to come here. The weather in Changchun is pretty cold, but it’s suitable for the competition, I hope I could do my best to get good results,” said Jesper Arnesson, a Swede who took part in the 50km skiing race.

“The starting point and racing track is quite different from five years ago,” said Man Dandan, a Chinese skier. “I wish our team will gain better results and we will spare no efforts.”

“It doesn’t snow at all in my country. It’s fabulous to see snow and do winter sports in China,” said Germana, a student from Fiji. “I wanna share my photos here with my family.”

Chinese skier Li Hongxue won the women’s 50km elite cross-country skiing race for the sixth time at the International Ski Federation (FIS) Changchun event on Friday of January 2.

Li, who had previously won the event five times – in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011, clocked 2 hours 42 minutes 16.3 seconds for her sixth title.

“I cannot really remember how many times I took part in the event, but accumulating points is an exciting matter for me,” said Li.

Compatriots Chi Chunxue and Ma Qinghua finished second and third respectively to complete the podium finish for China. Another Chinese Man Dandan, who won the 1.6km skiing, only finished in fifth place.

Swedish skier Bob Niemi-Impola grabbed the men’s 50km title with a time of 2 hours 17 minutes 6 seconds, followed by Chinese skiers Shang Jincai and Tang Jinle.

XIAMEN

>>43, 064 runners to compete at Xiamen marathon, half marathon

By Wu Junkuan and Liu Yang

The 2015 Xiamen International Marathon will kick off on Saturday of January 3 with a total of 43,064 runners to compete in half marathon and marathon races.

The organizers revealed during a new conference here on Friday that 43,064 runners from 53 countries and regions have registered for the races including 23,675 in marathon and 19,389 in half marathon event.

Defending champion Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia will be the favorite title contender in women’s marathon race. The 25-year-old clocked two hours, 21 minutes and 36 seconds to reach the top podium in Xiamen Marathon last year, shattering the previous record of 2:22:38 set by China’s Zhang Yingying in 2008.

In the men’s event, Tadese Tola of Ethiopia, whose personal best time is 2:04:49, will be the runner to watch on Saturday.

Two months after he claimed a marathon bronze medal at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow, the 2010 Paris Marathon champion timed 2:07:16 to win in the 2013 Beijing Marathon as he trimmed the event record set in 1986 by 19 second.

It has been the fastest ever time for marathon races so far organized by the Chinese Athletics Association. And Tola has already set his eyes for the 20,000 US dollars prize for breaking the course record in Xiamen.

Moses Mosop of Kenya is another contender in the men’s race with a personal best of 2:05:03 as he finished third at the 2012 Rotterdam Marathon.

The highlight of Mosop’s career was in 2011 when he clocked 2:03:06 to finish as the runner-up to Geoffrey Mutai (2:03:02) at the Boston Marathon, nearly one minute less than the world record of 2:03:59. As the course of Boston Marathon was a point-to-point course with an overall downhill slope, the time was not officially recognized by IAAF.

The event record of men’s race in Xiamen is 2:07:32 set by Ethiopia’s Negari Terfa in 2013.

It will be the 13th edition of Xiamen Marathon since the IAAF gold label race was launched in 2003. And this year the organizers have decided to change the circuit of the race for city construction concerns. The new course will not go through the downtown area of the city and will also exclude the famous Yanwu Bridge which stretches over the sea.

BEIJING

>>Zhang Kunsheng investigated for disciplinary violation

By Cui Wenyi

China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Kunsheng is now under investigation for “suspected disciplinary violation”, it was announced at the website of the Foreign Ministry on Friday of January 2.

Zhang has been removed from his office, said a spokesperson with the ministry.

WUHAN

>>Three central China officials removed from office

By Hu Longjiang, Li Pengxiang and Tan Yuanbin

Three officials in central China’s Hubei Province have been removed from both their government posts and the Communist Party of China.

Former party chief of the Ezhou municipal legislature Tu Weifa, former party chief of the Huangshi municipal legislature Zhu Zhonghua and Yu Hongxing, former deputy party chief of the Jingzhou municipal political advisory body, are suspected of serious disciplinary violations, the Hubei provincial commission for disciplinary inspection announced late on Thursday of January 1.

Their cases will be transferred to judicial authorities for handling.

Preliminary investigations found that the three abused their power to seek profits for others and took briberies, the commission said.

ABOARD XIANGYANGHONG 09

>>China’s deep-sea sub explores Indian Ocean seabed

By Zhang Xudong

China’s deep sea manned submersible Jiaolong on Friday of January 2 carried out the first dive on a mission to study active hydrothermal vent in the southwestern Indian Ocean.

Jiaolong for the first time also took the second batch of pilot trainees in the diving, which was intended to enable the trainees to learn some skills of submersible operation in active hydrothermal vent and collect samples of hydrothermal fluid, sulfide, rocks, sediment and water, said Yu Hongjun, chief commander of the mission.

“Besides, they (the pilots) will try to place some biological observation devices in hydrothermal vent,” Yu said.

In this dive, Jiaolong will be operated by pilot Fu Wentao and he will teach pilot trainee Qi Haibin in practice.

Scientists are able to see active hydrothermal vent and polymetallic sulfide in seabed and know the exact site and environment of samples when diving with Jiaolong, Tao Chunhui, chief scientist of the mission, said.

The information is important for China’s future research in the polymetallic sulfide exploration contract area, Tao said.

The hydrothermal sulfide is a kind of seabed deposit containing copper, zinc and precious metals such as gold and silver. Those metals formed sulfides after chemical reactions and came to rest in the seabed in “chimney vents.”

The diving area is within China’s exploration contract area that was inked by the International Seabed Authority and China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA) in 2011 and was 10,000 square kilometers in size.

Jiaolong was expected to dive 20 times to research polymetallic sulfides, biological diversity, hydrothermal microbes and genetic resources in the southwestern Indian Ocean in a 120-day expedition.

Named after a mythical dragon, Jiaolong reached its deepest depth of 7,062 meters in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench in June 2012 and started its five-year trial period in 2013.

GUANGZHOU

>>Guangdong slaughters chickens after virus found in export to Hong Kong

By Fang Ning and Wu Tao

Authorities in Huizhou City in south China’s Guangdong Province said on Friday of January 2 that it had slaughtered 13,000 chickens on a poultry farm, as its exports to Hong Kong were found to be infected with the deadly H7N9 virus.

Hong Kong authorities said on Wednesday that it would cull 15,000 chickens at the Cheung Sha Wan Market following the latest discovery of the deadly H7N9 virus in poultry imported from Guangdong.

Authorities in Huizhou traced the infected birds to the Guangdong Lyufeng Poultry Farm, and culled its stock. An immediate inspection was also made in some 1,000 poultry farms in the city. The virus has not been detected in some 7.68 million samples from the farms.

Hong Kong has raised its response level in hospitals to “serious” from “alert”, after a 68-year-old woman was hospitalized in Hong Kong on Dec. 25, and tested positive for avian influenza, the region’s first since early 2014. The woman arrived from the neighboring mainland city of Shenzhen almost two weeks earlier.

TAIYUAN

>>China builds world’s largest coal mine waste gas recovering project

By Fang Ning, Lü Xiaoyu and Liang Xiaofei

The world’s largest facility to turn excess methane gas from coal mines into electricity has been completed in north China’s Shanxi Province.

The facility was completed by the Lu’an Group, which owns the Gaohe Coal Mine in the coal-rich province. The company announced on Tuesday of December 30 it would soon start operating the generator with a capacity of 30 megawatts, capable of utilizing 99 percent of methane gas discharged from the coal mine.

The poisonous gas is a common emission during underground mining. Normally, mines will liquify the gas into methyl alcohol if it has a concentration higher than 30 percent, for concentrations between 10 percent and 20 percent it is captured and used to fuel internal combustion engines.

However, methane concentrations lower than 10 percent, which qualifies 81 percent of the gas released during mining, can not be consumed through direct combustion.

Jia Jian, deputy head of the Methane Gas Research Institute of the company, said the new technology has helped tackle the problem of how to dispose of the waste.

He said the project can decompose the gas into carbon dioxide and water under temperatures more than 950 Celsius, and use the heat and steam for power generation.

He said by recovering and utilizing the gas, the project can help reduce 1.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and produce 200 million kwh of electricity a year.

Jia said the project of making waste profitable has a good market potential. The demonstration facility installed at Gaohe Coal Mine has drawn interest from a number of coal mining firms, which have signed agreements predicted to reduce 15.8 million tonnes of carbon emissions.

Coal mining firms in China are under greater pressure than ever to control carbon emissions as the government continues to step up efforts to cut emissions.

China has set an ambitious goal of reducing carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent from the level in 2005.

By 2013, carbon emissions per unit of GDP dropped by 28.56 percent from 2005. In the first three quarters of this year, energy consumption per unit of GDP dropped by 4.6 percent from a year earlier and carbon emissions were down by 5 percent, data showed.

NANNING

>>China’s P2P trading booms in 2014, while risks emerging

By Fang Ning and He Fenglun

The trading value of China’s booming Peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms hit 250 billion yuan (about 41 billion U.S. dollars) for the whole of 2014, doubling 2013′s statistics, according to the Internet Society of China on Friday of January 2.

The new financing channel has helped break the strangle state-owned finance once held on those looking to back new businesses. It was estimated that 290,000 private lenders had invested via the P2P platforms.

In addition to convenience in capital utilization and low trading cost, online wealth management products allow users to avoid tight interest rate controls. Experts warned that with no regulations, the P2P industry is experiencing wild growth, and risks such as fraud, fund flight and illegal fund raising have emerged.

Professor Huang Zhen with the Law School of the Central University of Finance and Economics, said some platforms are actually run by loan sharks, who have moved online. However, the industry lacks big data management measures to monitor customers’ credit and investors’ losses.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission in September 2014 vowed to tighten regulations on P2P businesses, which includes new registration rules, requiring third party funds trusteeship and external audits.

The year ahead will be a tough test for surviving P2P lenders as a large number of online borrowing projects will mature. The implementation of the new rules will also trigger the first round of reshuffling in the P2P industry.

>>China mainland records 125 IPOs in 2014: Deloitte

This still fell short of the 154 IPOs, which raised 103.4 billion in 2012, the year before IPOs were suspended, Deloitte said.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the securities watchdog, approved seven rounds of new offerings since June 2014, when the Commission restarted the IPO market.

Deloitte figures showed that IPOs from the Main Board in Shanghai contributed the most funds (43 percent), followed by the Small- and Medium-sized Enterprise Board (29 percent) and Shenzhen’s ChiNext (28 percent) .

China’s Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises the ChiNext Board, which started trading on Oct. 30, 2009, mainly lists hi-tech companies and those with high growth potential.

In terms of new listings, despite a new rule allowing applicants to choose between listing on either the Shanghai or Shenzhen bourse, ChiNext (40 percent) took a dominant position while the Main Board (34 percent) and SME Board (26 percent) trailed.

Anthony Wu from Deloitte China’s China A-Share Capital Market Leader, said the CSRC’s commentary of getting 100 IPO candidates listed from June to end of 2014 suggested that the market would record at least 23 IPOs during January and February 2015.

The increase in the number of companies added to the Public Offering Review Committee of the CSRC in the last two weeks of 2014 also indicates that the authority is speeding up its issuance pace in order to ease pressure on more than 600 enterprises still waiting for IPO review, Wu said.

He also said upcoming listings are expected to be small and medium in scale in view of the ongoing concern over market liquidity.

They will also focus on companies from the manufacturing, consumer and retail and emerging industry sectors. For businesses that are seeking substantial funding through IPOs, many are likely to continue to head to Hong Kong, he added.

Hong Kong has enjoyed another record year in 2014. Its new IPOs experienced a double-digit rally from 2013 to 11 percent, while funds raised surged 35 percent.

The New York Stock Exchange clearly stood first in the global IPO race in 2014 with proceeds of 74.1 billion U.S. dollars despite the fact that Hong Kong recorded four huge IPOs in December.

The London Stock Exchange took third place with 24.8 billion U.S. dollars, while proceeds of 23.2 billion U.S. dollars raised on the NASDAQ saw it ranked fourth.

NANNING

>>Fire in SW China’s stockaded village leaves 130 homeless

By Fang Ning and Li Bin

A fire that broke out on Friday morning of January 2 in a Dong ethnic village in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region engulfed 21 houses and left 130 people homeless.

Rescuers said the fire broke out at 20 minutes after the midnight and was contained in two hours in Xiazhai village of Gunbei Dong Ethnic township, Rongshui County. No casualty has been reported.

The ancient village features timber houses, in which big families usually live together. The county is located in the outlying mountainous region in the northwest part of Guangxi.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Victims have been temporarily arranged in neighboring places.

HARBIN

>>2 dead, 11 injured in NE China warehouse collapse

By Zhu Shaobin, Cao Kai, Zhang Yue and He Shan

Two firefighters were dead and another 11 were injured in a warehouse collapse in Harbin city of northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, according to local authorities.

At least one firefighter remains buried at the collapse site, said Song Xibin, the city mayor.

Song said that local rescue forces are still continuing rescue efforts.

The firemen were buried when they were trying to put out the fire, which burnt down the third floor of a market warehouse at the Beifangnanxun ceramics market at about 10 p.m.on Friday of January 2, burying firemen on the second floor, according to a Xinhua reporter at the scene.

The 11 injured firemen were rushed to hospital. Three of them were in critical condition.

The warehouse is part of a 11-storeyed residential building. The first to third floor are used as warehouses and the rest eight floors are residential areas.

The fire, which broke out at about 1 p.m., is yet to be put out. Residents nearby have been evacuated.

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